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Rouge
Lorelle MacKenna, also called Rouge, was a female human living in Guttersworth during the New Age. Rouge was born with a birth defect that gave her difficulty walking. She walked with a pronounced limp. It was a subject of some embarrassment for her, and she disliked talking about it with others. Dark-skinned and beautiful, Rouge wore a characteristic sad expression, perhaps the result of the pain she endured. Rouge's nickname reflected the color of dye she used in her hair; even after it faded to a light pink color, the name stuck. She came to Guttersworth with her ailing father following an unpleasant incident in her home town. She took an assumed name (several of them, in fact) and began a new life, working for Mr. Tennyson at the Skeleton's Key repair shop. Rouge's cabin was sparsely decorated, sporting only the barest essentials. She was evidently an avid reader. Rouge had been living in Guttersworth at least since unctual year 3888. A meeting with Constable Winzig confirmed that he hadn't seen her in about three years, though it remains unclear whether she had moved into town at that time or whether it was merely her most recent meeting with the constable. At some point during 3889, Rouge said that Guttersworth had trouble with Trolls venturing into the town and stealing livestock. Rouge confronted one of them on the front porch of her home, splattering its brains with her father's blunderbuss. Rouge was dying of an unspecified illness. Knowing that she had little time left, it colored her perceptions. She was unabashedly honest and blunt to the point of being rude, but also tried to take care of the less fortunate. In addition to caring for her invalid father, she also tended to the vagrants who lived behind the repair shop. In 3890, "Four" Wheeler came to work at the repair shop, effectively supplanting Rouge's position. Rouge tended to handle the finances and customers while Four did most of the labor and repair work. The two had a less-than-cordial working relationship, routinely trading barbs and death threats. What Four failed to recognize was that Rouge treated him this way because she had been prepared to die, but after she developed feelings for him, she began to question whether she was ready to accept her fate. Knowing that life was so short, Rouge encouraged Four to find Mariposa and be with her if he still cared about her. In February 3891, Rouge's father disappeared. She recruited Four to help her search for him, checking with Constable Winzig but to no avail. Rouge never discovered the reason for her father's disappearance. When left alone in the repair shop, Rouge stumbled upon a zom that had wandered towards the shop. The zom attacked her, consuming her brain and entering her skull cavity to complete the symbiote phase of its life cycle. Accessing the electrochemically-stored information from her brain, the zom was able to manipulate Rouge's dead body and masquerade as her, intending to lure Four back to its cavern where dozens more hungry zoms awaited. Unfortunately, the zom also revealed information like Rouge's true name, the nature of her birth defect, and other information that Rouge herself tended to keep secret. The zom also ignored the information from Rouge's pain receptors, resulting in her face losing its characteristic sad expression. Four was not fooled by the deception for long and, thanks to a warning from the last vestiges of Rouge's consciousness (and the timely assistance of Wazzipaloo), was able to avoid being preyed upon. Four engaged in a physical struggle with Rouge that resulted in her body falling off a cliff, compelling the zom to abandon its host. Four buried Rouge's body at the bottom of the Uncanny Valley. Alternate Reality Four's possession of the fate-shifter allowed him to rewrite history; the first thing he did after acquiring it was attempt to undo Rouge's death. In the alternate versiona of reality, Four remained at the repair shop when the zom arrived; Four dispatched it with Mr. Tennyson's blunderbuss, saving Rouge from the zom attack. Unfortunately, Four's continued use of the fate-shifter resulted in him rewriting so many events that his reality had become unrecognizable. Forced to destroy the relic to escape the Ancient One, a disheveled and unshaven Four, nearly unrecognizable, found himself back in Guttersworth. Four himself became one of the vagrants behind the repair shop; he encountered Rouge one last time, who generously fed him some scraps of food. Without Four present to interfere with the natural course of events, it is likely the alternate Rouge suffered the same fate as the one from the original timeline. The Veil of Souls Rouge's buried body was magically summoned at the same time as the other cadavers reanimated by Deorwynn Fletcher in 3894. Four eventually came face-to-face with Rouge's corpse during the battle near the volcano in the Forgotten Basin, and was forced to dispatch his former friend and colleague in the molten lava outside the volcano. Behind the Scenes Rouge provides several aliases during the course of The Curse of the Fate Shifter, including the last name MacKenzie, MacDermott, and MacDonald, but her true surname is not identified in the story. The author's notes for the character list her name as Lorelle "Rouge" MacKenna. The character's name deliberately parallels Four's, as both have names with a French origin and both go by unusual nicknames instead of their given names. Rouge's death may have been orchestrated to some degree by The Ancient One, who approached Four immediately after her death. It was his intent to manipulate Four while he was still in an emotionally distraught state. Category:Persons Category:Humans Category:Main Characters Category:Deceased Category:Skeleton's Key Employees Category:Guttersworth Citizens Category:Zom Victims